Baseball union head says Biogenesis PED suspensions likely won’t happen until next season

Major League Baseball Players Association head Michael Weiner said Tuesday that he expects to be notified of the league’s plans to suspend players for the Biogenesis performance-enhancing drug scandal in the next month, but that any suspensions would be delayed to 2014 assuming they are appealed.

Former MVPs Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun are the two biggest names linked to the since-closed anti-aging clinic in Florida.

Weiner said he wants all hearings to be heard by arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, but not before September.

“When all the interviews are done, we will meet with the commissioner’s office and we’ll try to work something out,” Weiner said. “Our players that deserve the suspensions, we’ll try to cope with their suspensions. Our players that don’t deserve suspensions, we will argue that they don’t deserve a suspension. And I hope we have success. We may not have success on every single player, but I hope we have a fair amount of success.”

Weiner, who is fighting a brain tumor and is restricted to a wheelchair, acknowledged that baseball could choose to suspend players for any number of games based on “just cause.”

“In theory, they could be suspended for five games or 500 games,” he said. “We could then choose to challenge or not, but the commissioner’s office is not bound by the 50-100-life scale.”